The Empire That Would Not Die: The Paradox of Eastern Roman Survival, 640-740 (Carl Newell Jackson Lectures): 13 - Hardcover

John Haldon

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674088778 ISBN 13: 9780674088771

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2016

Synopsis

The eastern Roman Empire was the largest state in western Eurasia in the sixth century. Only a century later, it was a fraction of its former size. Surrounded by enemies, ravaged by warfare and disease, the empire seemed destined to collapse. Yet it did not die. In this holistic analysis, John Haldon elucidates the factors that allowed the empire to survive against all odds into the eighth century. By 700 CE, three-quarters of the empire's territory had been lost to the Islamic Caliphate. But the rugged territories of Anatolia and the Aegean held strategic advantages, preventing enemies from permanently occupying imperial towns and cities while leaving them vulnerable to Roman counterattacks. The more the empire shrank, the more it became centered around Constantinople, whose ability to withstand siege after siege proved decisive. The crisis forced the imperial court, the provincial ruling classes, and the church closer together. State and church together embodied a sacralized empire that held the emperor, not the patriarch, as Christendom's symbolic head. Despite territorial losses, what remained became the heartland of a medieval Christian Roman state, with a powerful political theology that predicted the emperor would eventually establish Orthodox Christianity's world dominion.

About this title

Review:

The Empire That Would Not Die is the latest contribution from a prolific scholar who has been laying the foundations of Byzantine history for the last twenty-five years. Haldon returns to seventh-century Byzantium with a new approach full of fresh insights." --Averil Cameron, Keble College, University of Oxford

About the Author:

John Haldon is Professor of Byzantine History and Hellenic Studies at Princeton University.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0674088778
• ISBN 13: 9780674088771
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 432